Brown’s Legacy: The Promises and Pitfalls of Judicial Relief

Brown v. Board of Education marked a turning point for both civil rights and judicial activism. During the half century since Brown, social activists of all kinds have sought policy changes from the courts rather than legislatures. That trend has produced social benefits but, over time, it has also shifted political power to elites. This essay explores the possibility of retaining Brown\u27s promise for racial equality while reinvigorating an electoral politics that would better represent many of the people Brown intended to benefit

Bias, the Brain, and Student Evaluations of Teaching

Student evaluations of teaching are a common fixture at American law schools, but they harbor surprising biases. Extensive psychology research demonstrates that these assessments respond overwhelmingly to a professor’s appearance and nonverbal behavior; ratings based on just thirty seconds of silent videotape correlate strongly with end-of-semester evaluations. The nonverbal behaviors that influence teaching evaluations are rooted in physiology, culture, and habit, allowing characteristics like race and gender to affect evaluations. The current process of gathering evaluations, moreover, allows social stereotypes to filter students’ perceptions, increasing risks of bias. These distortions are inevitable products of the intuitive, “system one” cognitive processes that the present process taps. The cure for these biases requires schools to design new student evaluation systems, such as ones based on facilitated group discussion, that enable more reflective, deliberative judgments. This article draws upon research in cognitive decision making, both to present the compelling case for reforming the current system of evaluating classroom performance and to illuminate the cognitive processes that underlie many facets of the legal system

Education for Citizenship

Commencement address given by Deborah Jones Merritt, Director of The John Glenn Institute For Public Service and Public Policy, to the Autumn 2004 graduating class of The Ohio State University, St. John Arena, Columbus, Ohio, December 12, 2004

Pedagogy, Progress, and Portfolios

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Agreements to Improve Student Aid: An Antitrust Perspective

Law schools tie much of their scholarship money to LSAT scores and undergraduate grades. By awarding substantial discounts to students with above-median indicators, schools attempt to climb the U.S. News ranking ladder. This practice, as many educators recognize, reduces access to legal education for low-income and minority students. As a result, many schools would like to shift at least some of their scholarship funds to need-based awards. Schools, however, struggle to make that change unilaterally; they worry about losing ground in the rankings race

Analysis of genotypic and phenotypic differences in Desmognathus quadramaculatus across the Southern Appalachians

Populations of Desmognathus quadramaculatus were compared for genotypic and phenotypic differences across 5 states in the Southern Appalachians. Series consisting of 10 salamanders each were collected from West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia. Salamanders were assessed for genotypic differences by using allozyme (proteins with polymorphic loci) electrophoresis staining for 13 loci of the muscle, liver and stomach tissue. Nei’s genetic distance was used to score genetic variation between populations. Phenotypic differences were assessed by comparing 10 external morphological measurements between populations. Mahalanobis’ distance was used to score morphological differences between populations. Both genetic and morphological differences were correlated with linear geographic distance (km) between populations (r 2= 0.85 and 0.65, respectively). Results of these studies indicate that morphologically cryptic species exist in the D. quadramaculatus complex. However, conflicting results of the morphological and allozyme testing indicate that further research, including DNA sequencing is necessary to resolve the taxonomic status of this species complex